Overview

The Lakota Sioux are a proud people known for their warrior culture and great buffalo hunts. Although many of their old traditions, such as the hunts, have passed into memory, they remain a stong people devoted to protecting as many of their old ways as possible. Currently, many of the Lakota still live in and around their traditional hunting grounds located in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and Nebraska. In the era before European explorers, the tribes of the Sioux nation were pushed farther and farther west by neighboring tribes. After the Spanish brought horses in the 1500's, the way of life on the Great Plains was forever altered. The Sioux tribes became migratory, following the buffalo herds and hunting them on horseback. Much of their culture was centered around the hunt, for even their homes were built so that they could be packed up at a moment's notice. The Lakota Sioux - sometimes called the "Teton" Sioux - are just one of the three tribes that make up the Sioux Nation: the Lakota, Eastern "Santee" Dakota, and the Western Dakota (Nakota). Within the Lakota, there are seven individual tribes: - Oglala - "They scatter their own" - Sicangu / Brule - "Burnt thighs" - Hunkpapa - "End of the circle" - Minicanjou - "Planters beside the stream" - Sihasapa / Blackfeet - Not to be confused with the separate, non-Sioux Blackfeet tribe - Itazipacola - "Without bows" - Oohenupa - "Two boilings" or "Two kettles"